


tightrope

by judyjargon



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Expansion on Claude's S-Support, F!Byleth, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, No Dialogue, Post Claude S-Support, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), do not tell me that byleth just adjusted flawlessly i refuse to believe it, um very minimal battlefield violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judyjargon/pseuds/judyjargon
Summary: Some nights, it takes everything in her not to tear off that glimmering emerald ring and throw it into the pristine Derdriu sea. As much as it is a balm, it cuts her open, leaving a gash in her chest next to the space where her heart should be. It oozes and bleeds, a constant trickle that leaves her gasping for breath with every rise and fall of her chest.She misses him. She misses him so much. Some nights, when she can’t sleep, she thinks it might kill her.-Byleth would've never asked him to stay, but she wishes that she had.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 101





	tightrope

**Author's Note:**

> i was gonna write a part ii with a sad ending but i don't think i can bring myself to do it but i also don't really want to write a part ii with a happy ending sooooooo have this!

_Never sure_

_Will you catch me if I should fall?_

-

Some nights, Byleth will press her fingers against her wrist. 

The thrumming beneath reminds her that she’s alive—that even if her heart doesn’t beat, her chest rises and falls and her blood flows. Even if she is not entirely human, she still _is_. 

Her days are a blur of satin gowns and diplomacy, sprinkled in between heavy crowns and chittering nobles. Peace is not easy. She hadn’t expected it to be, certainly, but it makes her weary. This isn’t like bearing a sword. There is no simple way out, only an endless trudge through the haze of royalty. 

Royalty. What a strange thought.

It’s an isolating existence. Even the jokes that her fawns make at her expense ring hollow, though she still laughs. It’s such a rare treat to see any of them now, off ruling their own territories and settling down into peacetime. Every single moment she has, she cherishes—she squeezes the life and vitality out of every single second, relishing in the pitch of Hilda’s laugh and the softness of Marianne’s rare smiles, holding tight onto sparring matches with Felix and flights with Ingrid. 

It’s all she has now, the only bits of her former life that she can cling onto. Especially with Claude a mountain range away. 

The ring on her finger is a constant reminder, a dagger to the heart that never fails to tell her that what she really wants is out-of-reach, even if only temporarily. His ambitions— _their_ ambitions, she corrects herself—are so much bigger than just them. One day, when both Fodlan and Almyra are more stable, she won’t go a day without seeing him, if only to make up for all the lost time. 

Compared to the whirlwind of the war, reconstruction efforts pass by at an impossibly slow pace. Every day feels like a week and her bones grow wearier. There aren’t enough hot baths in the world to soothe the ache in her bones, entirely different from the overextension of muscles she’s all too familiar with. Every night that she falls into her bed, she thinks that she’ll sink right through. 

She misses Claude. It’s plain and simple. They’d spent so much time together during the war, strategizing late into the night and supporting each other on the battlefield. Byleth clings to the memory of soft hands and hushed whispers atop the Goddess Tower, promising a new dawn and every beautiful thing that comes with it. 

It’s not that she doubts Claude. She knows what they have is real—as tangible as the texture of his cravat between her fingers and the feel of his hands in her hair. There is not a single moment that she doubts Claude, or what he feels for her. They’ve been through too much for that. 

Some nights, it takes everything in her not to tear off that glimmering emerald ring and throw it into the pristine Derdriu sea. As much as it is a balm, it cuts her open, leaving a gash in her chest next to the space where her heart should be. It oozes and bleeds, a constant trickle that leaves her gasping for breath with every rise and fall of her chest. 

She misses him. She misses him so much. Some nights, when she can’t sleep, she thinks it might kill her. 

When what’s left of the Empire loyalists and Agarthans storm Derdriu, she’s not sure she’ll make it through the night either, though for an entirely different reason. 

It had been planned through careful correspondence with Claude—an end to the remnants of their enemies and a show of solidarity between Fodlan and Almyra. It’s almost too perfect of a plan, and so she’s not entirely surprised when it goes wrong. It seems their grace has run out. 

The enemy army moves too quickly—so much faster than either of them had expected, and they arrive a week before Claude is due to make their grandstand together. She calls every commander and troop that can be spared to Derdriu, tells every citizen to board up their doors and bunker down. All of her fawns arrive. It warms her heart and temporarily fills that hole in her chest, the sheer affection she has for all of her former students rejuvenating her. 

It has been nearly a year since she has seen battle, and yet it feels as though she had just walked off a battlefield yesterday. Byleth sends Ingrid forward with Claude’s Immortal Corps, followed closely behind by Sylvain, Leonie, and Lorenz. With their back to the sea, at least she can hold the knowledge that they can’t be trapped in a pincer attack, as she and Claude planned to do themselves. 

And yet at the same time, with their back to the sea, there is only one escape route, should it come to that. 

She doesn’t doubt Claude. _She doesn’t doubt Claude_ —but there is only so much that can be done when the enemy is a week early and reinforcements are so far away, their journey much longer than she can hope for her army to stand alone. 

Time drips forward as her blade cuts through flesh and bone, bathing the streets of Derdriu red as she works through the exhaustion that has buried itself into her bones, all too familiar and yet entirely foreign. She can’t allow it to hinder her on this battlefield. Not when all of her fawns are counting on her, clinging onto that blind faith in her that has never frightened her more than it does now. 

This will not be the end. Claude promised her a new dawn, and she will see to it. Even if she dies on this battlefield, she knows that someone will pick up the scattered pieces. She has to believe in that, because if she doesn’t, then who will? 

Day bleeds into night and the moon rises high above Riegan Manor, accompanied by the glittering stars that make Byleth’s heart ache with longing. Hilda reports that their southern front has been pushed back and that their eastern flank stands to do the same. Byleth shouts back orders. Hilda reports that Leonie and Felix have fallen. Byleth rewinds and tries again. 

Nothing she does stops their eastern flank from falling—even when she manages to prop up their defenses in the south just enough to keep it from its inevitable doom, should she let it get pushed back, the eastern flank always falls, and Felix always dies. Usually, Lysithea goes down with him. Someone always dies.

But she keeps rewinding until she vomits, and when that isn’t enough, she orders the entire eastern flank to fall back. In her nausea, she misses the pure shock on Hilda’s face before she flies off on her wyvern, towards the east to give Byleth’s command. 

Only a well-timed Physic from Marianne keeps her upright. Without it, she would’ve undoubtedly fallen to the lightning-quick Assassin who’d struck straight for her heart. In her fatigue, all Byleth can do is roll away and launch a weak Nosferatu at them, greedily taking in every drop of life that the spell grants her. 

She faintly hears someone scream—Marianne, perhaps, or maybe Bernadetta? It could even be Annette, though her ears fail her now—and looks up only long enough to see that her spell had not been enough to take down the Assassin, who now stands poised over her with their sword raised, a fire in their eyes that Byleth has never seen in her own. 

She closes her eyes and bows her head, resigned to her fate. Part of her wonders what it’d be like to have that sort of conviction. 

But instead of a blade in her neck, the loud _thwip_ of an arrow whistles through the air. She flutters her eyes open to see an arrow protruding from the Assassin’s neck—it glows an eerie shade of red, the light coming off of it in wisps. 

Byleth nearly cries in her relief. 

She allows herself ten seconds of rest as that familiar white wyvern flies overhead, flanked by a battalion fit for a king. Arrows fly from their vantage point and it’s all over from there. Even with archers, Claude’s battalion is so swift that none land true, effortlessly looping through the air in a way that makes Byleth feel a bit sick, thankful that she’s never had to fly a wyvern in combat. 

The dust clears and that magnificent white wyvern lands in front of her, only outmatched by the golden King of Almyra, armor gleaming gently in the soft light of dawn. 

She doesn’t remember how she gets there, but the feeling of his arms around her fills every aching wound inside of her.

-

_Well, it's all an adventure that comes with a breathtaking view_

_Walking a tightrope with_ _you_

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr @feyreofthewildfire  
> also catch me on both the felannie and sylvix discords cause i live in multishipping hell


End file.
